


your heart-strings that play soft and low

by lemon_verbena



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, Late Night Conversations, Pre-Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike, Song: Moondance (Van Morrison)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_verbena/pseuds/lemon_verbena
Summary: Robin doesn’t stand, and Cormoran takes this as an invitation to sit. He exhales smoke into the dim light of the street-lamps, where it hangs in the air.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 12
Kudos: 83





	your heart-strings that play soft and low

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot that I wrote in one sitting, when my muse took my by the hand and dragged me away. Lightly edited, and this is all of it. Not my usual sort of thing, but I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> Quick context note, which I didn't feel like shoehorning into the story: Robin's phone died while she was out on a date at a bar. Everything else is, I think, self-evident.
> 
> I'll leave [this linked here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kfYOGndVfU) for you, in case you find that you'd like to play it while you read. You'll know when.

She’s sitting on the bench of a graceful, sinuous concrete sculpture when he finds her. She looks up at the sound of his shoes on the path, her eyes drawn to the glow of the smouldering cigarette dangling from his mouth. 

“You came,” she says, mildly surprised.

“Of course I did,” he replies, mildly offended. “You called.”

Robin doesn’t stand, and Cormoran takes this as an invitation to sit. He exhales smoke into the dim light of the street-lamps, where it hangs in the air.

“I thought you might send Ilsa,” Robin says. “Or… I don’t know. I thought you were busy tonight.”

“I was,” Cormoran acknowledges. “But you called.”

She sighs. Cormoran leans closer, so that their shoulders touch, and Robin sets her head against him. They look out over the empty park, the sound of traffic muffled by the gracious old trees lining the walkway. 

“Your phone number is the only one I have memorized,” she says after a long, slow moment. 

Cormoran smokes meditatively, rolling this information around in his brain. 

“You’re the only person I’d bail on my sister for,” he says eventually.

Robin snorts. “That’s a lie,” she says, amused. 

He glances down at her, affection on his face that he would never let show if she could see him. Her eyes are far-off, gazing into the shadows. 

“I had to leave Jack,” he says, and feels Robin nod.

“I’ll allow that,” she says. “He’s the only one of them you like.”

Cormoran smokes more, his cigarette nearly finished. Robin leaves her head on his shoulder. A pair of boys bike past them, very quickly, the sound of their tires receding into the night. 

“You don’t like people much, do you,” Robin says eventually. “Even your family, or most of them.”

“Most of ‘em,” Cormoran agrees. “But Jack’s a good kid. And I do have friends.”

“I know,” Robin says. She doesn’t lift her head from his shoulder. 

“You’re one of them,” he says, softly, nudging her. 

“Me?”

“The people I like,” Cormoran says. “You’re one of them.”

“Thank you,” Robin says. 

The memory of a late-night whisky and curry floats by, _my best mate is you_ murmurs the breeze. Robin shivers, her light jacket not quite right for the chill.

“What’s next?” Cormoran asks. 

“What do you mean?” Robin replies. “That’s sort of a tall question.”

“Let’s keep it simple, then. What’s next right now?” he asks. “I’ve nearly finished my cig, and you’re shivering.”

“I don’t know,” Robin says. “I don’t want to go to another bar. I don’t think I can stand to be around people right now.”

“And what am I, then,” Cormoran says dryly. 

“You’re not people,” Robin says, lifting her head at last. “You’re Cormoran. It’s different, being with you.”

She looks up at him, her eyes wide in the dim light. Cormoran stubs out his cigarette on the underside of the bench, flicking it toward the bin a few feet away. 

“I know what you mean.” He looks back at her, taking in the details of her face as he usually does not allow himself to do. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Robin smiles at him, but it’s got melancholy tucked into it. “What’s home, really?” she says. “Max’s boyfriend is over tonight, and I hate feeling as though I’m intruding on them by existing there. Honestly, I probably spend more time in the office than anywhere else.”

“Consider me the voice of experience when I tell you this,” Cormoran says. “I really don’t recommend actually trying to live in the office.”

They rarely speak of those first weeks of their acquaintance; they were both different people then, in some ways. And they remain fundamentally unchanged in other ways, the important ones, the things that make them well-suited.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Robin says, laughing softly. A flush of pleasure warms Cormoran, to have made her laugh. 

“Want to take a turn around the park?” he asks, in a moment of inspiration. “Just to clear your head. We can’t sit on this bench all night.”

“Damn,” Robin says, rising to her feet. “There goes my plan.”

She offers Cormoran a hand up, which he takes.

“Your leg won’t mind it?”

“No,” Cormoran says, as they set off. “Wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”

Their feet crunch in the gravel companionably. A wild thought takes hold of Cormoran’s brain, almost like a compulsion: _take her hand_ it says. _Reach out and hold her hand._

But there are boundaries. He reaches instead for something to say. 

“Am I really the only number you have memorised?”

Robin laughs again. “Well, the only one in London, yeah. I could hardly call my mum, could I?”

He shrugs. “Maybe you could have, I don’t know. I’m glad you felt like you could call me, though.”

“Didn’t occur to me to call anyone else,” Robin says. “You’re… well, you’re my partner. You’re always the first person I want to call.”

Cormoran is startled enough by this admission that he’s already looking at her face, which is how he sees the expression that flashes across it for the briefest of moments, the one that says “I didn’t mean to say that aloud.”

The path curves around, and the sound of London is louder here, as they approach the edge of the park. A horn honks abruptly, making them both jump. Robin huffs a little, and Cormoran smiles back. They pace along in silence, both thinking their own thoughts. Slowly, the noises fade as they move deeper into the park once more. 

“You’re my first call, too,” Cormoran admits after he decides he ought to honor her confession with his own. “When I want to talk things over, or I’ve had a rotten day, I call you, because I know you’ll make me feel better.”

The smile that lights Robin’s face, even seen only in the soft dim light, is reward enough for this baring of his soft underbelly. 

“Sometimes you’re the only person whose call I’ll take,” Robin says. “Sometimes I don’t want to talk to you—”

“Hey,” he says, “I knew you were ducking my calls—”

She elbows him. “It’s usually because you’ve been a boor about something,” Robin says. “So it’s really your own fault. But usually, I like seeing your name come up on my phone.”

There is something just slightly magical about being the only two people in a park at night; Robin can feel it, the thinning of boundaries, the way the streetlamps limn the world with golden potential, endless opportunity. Cormoran feels it too, that they are alone somehow in a fragile soap-bubble world, just us two, and everything is possible and nothing is forbidden.

It’s alluring, and false, but when he looks down at Robin’s face, Cormoran can almost allow himself to believe it. She looks back, and Robin wants to say things that she would never say at noon. It’s only the midnight, she tells herself. Lots of things seem possible at midnight that you’d never attempt in daylight.

“I don’t know what to do,” Robin says, not breaking eye contact. “I want to tell you to take me home, because I’d quite like to go home, only I don’t know where that is anymore.”

Cormoran nods; he is acquainted with this feeling.

“I think you’re the only person I could say that to,” Robin muses. “The only one who wouldn’t judge me. My family doesn’t understand, really, even if they love me. You understand.”

He nods again. “I’ve been there,” he says. “I found that home’s not a place, anyway. It’s a feeling. Sometimes places give you that feeling, but it’s easier to find home in people than places, even though people are more likely to let you down.”

Robin stops walking, staring up at the moon, which has just emerged from behind a cloud. “Oh,” she said. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“The moon?” Cormoran asks, his eyes on her face. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Even when I was— when I was at my lowest. I could look for the moon, and she’d be there. It’s funny, isn’t it? Everyone in history has looked up at the same moon, and there’s all the poems and songs and all about the moon, she’s been a goddess a hundred times over. All these different people, acting like they each have a special connection to the same moon. But it’s always true, isn’t it? Everyone does have their own connection to her.”

Cormoran leans down to press a kiss to Robin’s cheek. It’s unplanned; he surprises himself by doing it. 

“Sorry,” he says, as Robin’s hand comes up to touch her skin, where the memory of his stubble remains. 

“Don’t apologise,” she says, blinking at him. 

“Alright,” he replies, and they resume walking. 

“What’s that song?” he asks. “You said something about songs about the moon, and now I’ve got one and I can’t quite catch it.” He hums a few notes. “Marvelous night for… moon… something…”

Robin hums, picking up the notes, then sings quietly, “It’s a marvelous night for a moon-dance, with the stars up above in your eyes…”

“That’s the one,” Cormoran says, nodding. “Thanks.”

“My mum loves that song,” Robin says. “She used to dance to it with my da, when it would come on the radio. Every time I hear it, I think of him twirling her around the kitchen while she’s making dinner.” Their feet crunch the gravel in unison. She sings a bit more: “And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush, and all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush…”

Cormoran hums along, wondering what impish impulse brought that particular song to the forefront of his memory. 

“Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love,” Robin sings, and her voice isn’t especially good but it sends a shiver down Cormoran’s spine all the same. 

Whatever impulse he had earlier comes back, and before he can stop himself Cormoran reaches out to take Robin’s hand, twirling her. She’s startled into laughter, allowing herself to be inexpertly handled through the maneuver.

She sets her other hand on his shoulder, and there is no music but the wind in the trees as she sways with him. “A moondance?” she asks, and the smile she’s wearing sends warmth through his veins.

“Sometimes, home is what we find in other people,” he replies, half a non-sequitur. 

“It really is,” Robin says, and slides her arms around him, transitioning easily from just-barely-dancing to a hug. Cormoran tucks his face into her hair, the memory of their various past hugs swirling around them like ghosts before being blown away on the breeze. Robin shivers against him.

“I think I’m ready to go home now,” she murmurs, quiet enough that if they weren’t entwined he wouldn’t have heard her. 

But he doesn’t loosen his grip until Robin starts to pull away; it’s so rare for them to engage in any kind of physical affection that Cormoran finds himself savouring each one, like rare treats for a person on a strict diet.

“Did you drive here?” Robin asks, pulling back only far enough to be able to look up at him once more. At his nod, she says, “would you mind driving me back to my flat?”

“Of course,” Cormoran says. They are still very close together, and the suggestion of a kiss shimmers between them, but is discarded by both. 

“Thank you,” Robin says. “You’re a good friend, Cormoran Strike.”

“I’ll always come when you call, Robin Ellacott,” he replies. 

She grins; he cannot help but smile back.

“Come on, then,” she says, taking another step back at last. “Before I catch my death of cold, as my gran was always warning me I would.”

The walk back to his car and subsequent drive to her flat is quiet and easy; there’s something about the midnight ease of boundaries that makes it thus, Cormoran thinks. He’s not worrying about deadlines, or clients, or how their interactions will appear to onlookers. There’s only Robin, laughing at his joke in his passenger seat, telling him where there’s a shortcut and reminding him to get his oil changed, for goodness’ sake.

“Thank you,” she says as he idles at the curb. 

“Of course,” he replies. 

She leans over and presses a kiss to his cheek. “You’re part of my home now,” she says, and before he can process this fully she is slipping out of the car and running up to her building. With a wave and the flash of a smile she’s gone.

Cormoran sits at the curb for a long minute, before shaking his head and pulling out into the street, turning towards his own flat and bed. 

Home, of course, is elsewhere, hanging up her jacket and humming: “it's a marvelous night for a moondance…”


End file.
